Editor’s Note: This profile on Lou Holtz was originally published in the summer of 1993, just before the season when the Fighting Irish went 11–1, including a landmark win over Florida State that elevated Notre Dame to No. 1. We are sharing this story again in remembrance of Holtz following his death on March 4.
Reading an account of a day with Lou Holtz is akin to hearing a string quartet play the 1812 Overture. It is accurate enough, but the brass, the bells and the cannons are missing. Describing the man is like writing about Tchaikovsky’s music. Prose cannot relay the sweep, the intensity, the masterful manipulation of emotion. And like the Overture, Holtz has several melodies.
Sports fans, especially Domers, will hardly be surprised to hear that the head football coach of the University of Notre Dame is a busy man. But “busy” is about as adequate a label for Holtz’s life as it would be for the chief resident of the White House. It is not a matter of being busy; it is total immersion, total concentration.
He loves the word “concentration.” He practices it as few can. It is one of the bases of his stunning success. He concentrates when listening to a corporate ninety-caliber; he pays careful attention to the remarks of his limousine chauffeur. His subsequent questions indicate that he has heard what they said; he has actually listened.
For Holtz, listening is not a passive act. Nor one of simple courtesy. He asks a barrage of relevant questions. Data are received, registered and stored. He covets information as he values time. Neither is to be wasted. It is a thing to keep in mind for anyone who deals with him.
Walking from here to there, for instance, consumes time. He minimizes the loss by employing a pace that eats yards rather than minutes. Sports scribes remark on his relentless sideline pacing during a football game. That pace is slow. Holtz in an airport is a study.
The scribes might compare it to watching a fast receiver. In fact, he is more like a good downfield blocker. Being with him leaves one with the melancholy impression that someday he will approach one of those electric-eye doors at too great a speed. It will be the door that gives.
There are a lot of those doors in a Lou Holtz year. He divides his year into halves. From the August start of preseason football practice until after the inevitable bowl game, he accepts no speaking engagements that require any great travel beyond South Bend.
The other six months are what the media call the “off-season.” But for Lou Holtz, there is no off-season; he bristles at the term. He is speaking, flying between speeches, or he is thinking football. All of it is organized. He is an organized man, speeches included.
He divides his engagements into three categories: those he does for a fee, those he does in the interest of the University, and those he does on his own as acts of generosity for deserving causes. The coach and Jan Blazi, his secretary, strive to maintain that balance.
They can’t count the requests he must turn down. Some are worthy enough to earn a promise of some future year. They are equally reluctant to discuss the for-profit motivational talks. He uses a speakers’ bureau and obviously gets a substantial fee. He should. His name is a potent draw and he delivers a mesmerizing stem-winder. He could manage at best only a few more than the volume he handles now.
Holtz will not even discuss that number, but it has to be sizable. It is for the future of his family. He is intently aware that, as there was an alpha, there will be an omega.
He uses his time the way he drives his staff and team — relentlessly. Last May was an example: The annual spring Blue-Gold game was behind him. He booked a heavy schedule of out-of-town appearances. New York City, Washington, Philadelphia, San Diego, Chicago and several stops in Florida. And other places too. One day in May illustrates his point that there is no off-season.
On this day there is a keynote luncheon talk in Louisville and a banquet speech in Omaha. The day will prove to be a tribute both to modern aviation and to the stamina of Louis Leo Holtz.
Some Big Men require an entourage for security, for reinforcement. Not Holtz. Usually he travels alone. His wife, Beth, rarely goes along on these forays. There is a tendency for her to get lost in the shuffle, he explains. “It can be bad enough on my own; everybody pulling me and shoving me.”
This time he has a fellow traveler, a writer. Holtz is not enthused at having company. It is abundantly clear that he would rather have a tooth pulled. “I am a very private person,” he says. He means it. There is a public man and a private man, as the day reveals, and the fascination of Lou Holtz lies in the deft way he manages both, generous with the one but guarding the other jealously.
The University’s plane whisks him from South Bend’s Michiana Regional Airport to Louisville on a sunny morning. He likes the pilots and relaxes with them. There is kidding about the scarcity of football tickets. He fields the inevitable question.
“I am not in the ticket business. I do not help people find tickets. Never. Besides, I am paid to coach. You shouldn’t deny alumni and friends of the University.”
He doesn’t send courtesy tickets to the opposition, either. (To Holtz, the other school is always “the opposition.”) Others may do it but he refuses.
“You shouldn’t spoil it for our alumni and supporters by planting opposition people among real fans. It’s a very bad practice. They talk about public relations, but that is not very good public relations,” he says.
The 1993 season is a quarter-year away for alumni but not for football people. Holtz talks about an idea for moving part of the August practice away from the campus in the interest of total concentration on football. One of his aides, George Kelly, a veteran assistant coach, is checking out a Northern Indiana academy in a rural setting. Holtz likes the idea. “It would let the freshman and the older players get to know each other better. They and the assistant coaches can learn to band together against one common enemy: Me.”
There is some amusement in his eyes as he says this.
He is full of plans for the summer. He acknowledges it will be busy; others might say hectic. Holtz equates his job with running a $20-million corporation. He is already planning around the three-week July vacation enjoyed by his assistants and staff. This year includes a departure from his own norm: He may actually take a vacation himself.
Here is an aspect of the man that surprises. He violates rules that society accepts as necessary for good physical and emotional health. He has never had a real vacation. He has had one medical exam in 20 years. He takes good care of those around him but is curiously fatalistic about himself.
“If there’s something wrong, I don’t want to hear about it.”
But this past winter has left the Coach with intimations of mortality. He’s planned a summer gathering of his family for a trip down Idaho’s Snake River Gorge. And he is considering taking two days out for a full physical.
Otherwise he finds relief in books and golf. “I like to play whenever I get the opportunity. Do I play much? No.”
As the plane lands in Louisville, Holtz whips off his white Notre Dame sweater and dons a suitcoat. He is here to be the keynote luncheon speaker for the national annual meeting of MedEcon, a group that is a reflection of the complexities of the modern health-care industry. It is a commercial and professional umbrella organization of every conceivable aspect of health care.
MedEcon President Gary Wyngarden briefs Holtz during the drive from the airport to downtown Louisville. He gets total attention and concentration. “What else should I know about this group? What do they want to know? Will I be talking to people who manage other people?”
Holtz notes the “yes” answer to the last question and will use it later in his speech. Now, he is brisk without being offensive. He checks his wristwatch, something he does constantly.
The convention site is Louisville’s elegant Galt House. Holtz roars down the long mezzanine, Wyngarden and a public relations person in tow. He brakes suddenly. Two young parents accost him nervously and ask him to greet their daughter.
She is a solemn, pretty 4-year-old reclining on a settee, both legs in heavy braces.
The businesslike mien disappears. Holtz talks to the child and her brothers, perhaps 10 and 12; he autographs footballs and poses for a picture with the family, a relaxed grin on his face. The girl is stoic, the boys awe-stricken, the parents wet-eyed. Holtz thanks them as he departs.
He asks his hosts for 20 minutes to change suits, freshen up and go over his notes, but he is at the luncheon site in less time than that. At the table he asks as many questions of his hosts as they do of him. He clearly admires entrepreneurs and says so. He likes successful people. He answers questions about football and his team with surprising candor.
By the end of lunch he owns the table; by the end of his talk he will own the house.
He speaks from the front of a low stage, disdaining notes, lectern or microphone. He needs none. His voice booms. His style is rapid-fire, and he has the 800-plus crowd listening attentively and laughing constantly.
“People ask me, ‘How do you sleep with that schedule?’ Like a baby. I wake up every two hours and cry.”
And: “Rocket Ismail is so fast he plays tennis by himself.”
The Coach goes on, making fun of his own class standing as a Kent State history major. Skeptics in the audience cave in. He stresses positive attitude and having goals. You can’t lead a good life without goals. He warns against “letting what you don’t have make you forget what you DO have.”
Health care today involves enormous responsibilities, he tells them. You need teamwork in today’s world.
Unlike the standard speaker who opens with three jokes and then gets heavy, Holtz interlaces messages and humor throughout the talk. He flashes the boyish grin repeatedly, reminding one of how Tom Sawyer might have looked in his 50s.
The audience thunders its approval when he says, “At Notre Dame, we teach not only how to make a living, but how to live.” The talk may be for the Holtz family future, but the benefits to Notre Dame are obvious. He speaks for 46 minutes, answers questions patiently for 14 more and then signs perhaps a hundred autographs. Wyngarden has to pull him away, reminding him of the time.
The race to the waiting plane reveals another part of Holtz. Impatience when things go wrong. There are two terminals for corporate aviation at the Louisville airport. The car returns to the one at which Holtz debarked. It is the wrong one; the other is across the field, and getting there is a six-mile trip in urban traffic.
The Coach checks the time constantly, frets at the traffic and grows agitated. He even mentions canceling his appearance at Boys Town. But he is satisfied with a promise that a call will be made explaining the delay. The small two-engine jet, chartered by Boys Town, is ready, and he is airborne again.
He relaxes, if Lou Holtz can ever be described as relaxed, munching crackers from the plane’s larder and checking out the soda pop supply. It is curiosity; he carries with him several cans of a diet soft drink, just in case.
His annoyance at the delay, he explains, was about the message it sends. “It says, ‘You’re not as important as the people at the other end.’ It’s a terrible message.” To Holtz it is a lowering of standards. He repeats almost verbatim a line he used in Louisville and will use again in Omaha: “I can’t stand for anyone to lower their standards.” He says it with fire.
He can’t stand inactivity either. He talks about the engagement ahead and then about a football staff meeting he’s planned for 8 the next morning. He has had his fill of hotel rooms and prefers to be home if his final engagement of the night is within reasonable distance. To Holtz, Omaha to South Bend is reasonable.
He says he loves the public speaking. He got started when he was coach at North Carolina State, and he was in demand before he ever got to Notre Dame. “I enjoy it. If you enjoy doing something, people will enjoy watching you do it.
“God gave me certain gifts. . . . Take that little girl in Louisville. It can’t be the easiest life for that family. God gave me the ability and the opportunity to make them feel better. Then I feel better.”
He grins when he opines that he has made a difference in people’s lives. It is a rare grin. Offstage, away from the spotlight, Holtz is not a smiler. Winning games and winning audiences are serious business. Even small talk must have some point.
He anticipates a standard question. How are athletes different than when he started coaching? Holtz again:
“People and players. You handle everyone differently than we did once. People today are more fragile than they used to be. They can be broken more easily. They are not just different; they are less secure, more tender.
“Society has changed. You have to coach that way. You have to lead that way. But the standards are the same. I have not changed my standards.”
In Omaha, a chauffeured stretch limousine is waiting. The point of this visit is a giant fund-raising celebration of Boys Town, “. . . the only official village in the nation created exclusively for children in need of a fresh start in life.” This time there are three on the reception committee: the financial vice president of the celebrated institution, the president of the Boys Town Booster Club and the president of the local Notre Dame Alumni Club.
Holtz holds a press conference in the Boys Town Hall of History, fielding questions from Omaha print and electronic reporters smoothly and candidly. He is presented with a Boys Town football jersey and speaks warmly of the values of the game. He insists on a tour of the place that is home to hundreds of boys and girls. Then there are a few minutes to freshen up and he is off to the reception and banquet in the vast Ak-Sar-Ben Coliseum in Omaha.
Nebraskans are orderly. They all seem to observe the speed limit; they line up in patient fashion for individual reception pictures with the Coach, who shmoozes with them as an old friend would. Many are surprised at his height. He is taller than they expected; they have seen him only on television, dwarfed by today’s players.
Holtz at 56 is 5 feet, 10 inches tall. He weighs about 156 pounds, and if he does not have the build of the former linebacker that he is, he nevertheless moves with athletic grace. His face is lined more heavily than his publicity pictures show, but the lines appear to be those of a fair-complected man who has spent most of his life outdoors.
There is no weariness in his pale blue eyes, which are expressive. They can light up with good humor, then turn to ice in moments. His sandy hair shows gray.
The banquet is more than the usual fundraiser — it is the final major event in a year-long observance of the 75th anniversary of the founding of Boys Town by Father Edward Flanagan. Nearly 2,000 supporters have paid $50 each to be here. The tickets note carefully that $35 is a deductible gift.
Inevitably, the program is long. Holtz is the climax. He accepts a box of cookies baked by the girls of Boys Town, who now equal the boys in numbers. He accepts the 1993 Father Flanagan Award for Service to Youth. He launches into an exhortation that has his audience spellbound in a minute. He uses no props, but an observer gets the idea that if he did, he would be waving a bible or a map of enemy positions.
Again he pounds away at attitude, responsibility, character. He lists his own values by priority: faith, family, job, obligation to others, obligation to Notre Dame. He is stern at times, then flashes that engaging grin. When he criticizes the Supreme Court for permitting antisocial behavior while banning prayer in public schools, the Nebraskans roar their approval. He returns a sly smile.
He praises those who support Boys Town and tells the many young residents who are present to set goals and meet them. He talks intimately to them at the close of his speech: “Never be afraid to cry in a time of sorrow. Never be afraid to say ‘I love you.’”
Patrick Henry or William Jennings Bryan may have gotten good receptions in their day, but it is difficult to imagine a more thunderous standing ovation than the one now afforded Lou Holtz.
He has spoken for 45 minutes, but he stays at the podium to answer a dozen audience questions, then signs perhaps 150 more autographs, genially, almost humbly.
The impatience returns as soon as the limo is on the road to the airport. He would like it to go faster, but he is courteous to the reception committee, still with him, still basking in the reflected light of the famous visitor.
The same jet is waiting at the airport, but there is a delay. Violent thunderstorms have wracked Omaha all evening; one is over the field as the aircraft reaches the runway. Holtz twice urges the pilots to take off. “We will try between storms,” the co-pilot tells him.
That is what they do. The plane claws up into the moonlight through towering black thunderheads. The spectacular panorama of nature in an angry phase is lost on Holtz, who promptly takes a 10-minute nap. Then he rouses himself, shares some excellent cookies, and works on notes for tomorrow’s staff meeting. He sleeps some more, awakening near midnight as the plane drops into the South Bend landing pattern.
The goodbyes on the ground are brief, but the Coach gives in on a tiny point. All through the 17-hour day, he has refused baggage help from his quasi-welcome fellow traveler. Now, loaded down, he concedes that four hands are better than two.
Suit bag, suitcase and briefcase are placed in his car, along with the Boys Town golf cap, the Father Flanagan plaque, the football jersey and the cookies, which get the same careful handling as the suit does. Then he speeds into the night.
The writer walks to his car hoping the staff will be ready for that 8 a.m. meeting. Lou Holtz will be.
Jack Powers is the retired executive editor of The South Bend Tribune and an adjunct associate professor of American studies at the University.